Anthony Edwards struggled mightily through the opening six minutes of the first quarter on Friday in New York. He looked entirely out of rhythm, missing his first six shot attempts.
Then he shifted gears and started aiming to get others involved, to good effect. The Wolves guard finished the first quarter with four assists — and away he went.
Edwards was the best player on the floor for the rest of the evening, hitting 12 of his final 15 shots en route to scoring 36 points to go with 13 rebounds and seven assists to power Minnesota to a 116-99 victory over the Knicks.
“It was an incredible game by Ant. … Really did a great job of reading the floor, attacking, staying aggressive, getting to his stuff quickly,” Wolves coach Chris Finch told reporters. “What we really need him to do is stay aggressive and make all the right plays, and I thought he was really, really good at that tonight.”
The win meant something to Minnesota after it was drubbed by the Knicks on national television a month prior at Target Center.
“Last time we played them, they kind of embarrassed us,” Wolves forward Naz Reid said in his postgame, television interview. “So we kind of took it upon ourselves to take pride in that situation and have a bounce-back win.”
The Knicks were without Karl-Anthony Towns, who was out with a wrist injury. But Minnesota didn’t have guard Donte DiVincenzo, who was on the shelf due to a great toe sprain. Finch said he doesn’t know how long DiVincenzo’s will be out. The guard’s injury marks the first one to anyone not named Mike Conley among Minnesota’s top-eight players.
How would the Wolves respond? Swimmingly.
Friday marked one of their most complete efforts. The Wolves went 22 for 40 from 3-point range — including 8 for 13 from Edwards, and 6 for 6 for Reid, who scored 23 points to go with eight rebounds.
But Mike Conley — who returned to the starting lineup in DiVincenzo’s absence — provided an offensive jolt to start the game. Nickeil Alexander-Walker hit a few big shots, Julius Randle made good decisions and rookie Rob Dillingham was an offensive spark in his first NBA game in weeks after spraining his ankle.
Defensively, Minnesota entirely bottled up the Knicks.
The Wolves had the defenders in Edwards, Alexander-Walker and Jaden McDaniels to seemingly wear down New York’s star point guard Jalen Brunson. Outside of an unexpected 18-point, first-half explosion from Cam Payne, the Knicks found no real consistent offense throughout the evening.
So when Minnesota led by three at the end of three quarters, the Wolves had established a successful formula to ride to the finish line, while the Knicks were left with their hands in their pockets.
“That team is not easy to beat. But they compete on the glass, they make all the right plays and stuff like that,” Reid said. “But tonight we took it to them, so we made all the right plays and then some.”
It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that such a performance occurred on a night when Minnesota’s best player delivered to expectation, and everyone else seemingly fell in line.
“I thought we had really good flow. … We started the game with good early actions, got the ball loosened up early,” Finch said. “We created the flow, and we benefited from it.”
Minnesota next plays Saturday, when it hosts Cleveland.
“Excited for the win,” Reid said, “but we’ve got another one tomorrow.”
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